The tool filters content based on hashes: a far more limited (but easier to implement) technology than the state-of-the-art motion-based systems we've covered before on Ars. FileRights also appears to require the cooperation of the movie studios and music labels, who are expected to supply file hashes for their content.

Although this is unlikely to affect the legal case pending against Torrentspy, it could convince the court to order reduced penalties in the event of an adverse finding; remaining defiant is unlikely to earn points with the judge, while a "good faith" effort to do something about the infringement issue might have better results.

News of the FileRights system comes as Torrentspy faces a controversial court order requiring it to log user activity. The company has repeatedly claimed that it keeps no logs and therefore cannot produce any, but a judge has ruled that the necessary information is already contained in server RAM and so does not require Torrentspy to create any new information; it just needs to record the information already present in the system.

Torrentspy is fighting this ruling with the help of the EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology, but it appears to have abandoned the fight over filtering. Any claims that services like Torrentspy are not responsible for what users do ran headlong into the Supreme Court's Grokster decision in 2005, which found that such protection only applied when a company was not actively promoting copyright infringement.

Torrentspy may hope that its new filtering regime will prove to the courts that it has no desire to incite infringement, but that won't get the company off the hook for past transgressions.